BlackBerry, Shipping Z10 In Canada, Posts $500M Day

By David Zielenziger | February 05 2013 5:11 PM

BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY), the Canadian smartphone developer, gained another $537 million in market value Tuesday as it started shipping the new Z10 units in Canada after they were launched last week in the UK. It was the second consecutive surge for the company.

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BlackBerry unveiled its Z10 handset on Jan. 30 and released the phone in the U.S. on Friday, March 22.

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At the close, shares of the Waterloo, Ontario, company formerly known as Research in Motion rose $1.03 to $16.02, valuing the company at $8.39 billion. Tuesday’s gain was nearly 7 percent, compared with Monday’s gain of 15 percent, which added $1 billion to BlackBerry’s market value.

BlackBerry's upward trend continued on Wednesday, as the shares rose another 3.2 percent to $16.54, before easing back to $16.23, up 21 cents, in morning trading, boosting its value above $8.6 billion.

The company benefited from a good response to the Z10, the first model of the BlackBerry 10 family, which will be joined by the Q10 at a later date.

BlackBerry also advertised on Sunday’s Super Bowl in a 30-second commercial from London-based Abbott Mead Vicker BBDO, a unit of Omnicom Group (NYSE:OMC). The ad showed miraculous things like vaporizing an out-of-control tanker truck with the tag line, “it’s easier to show you what the Z10 can’t do.”

Despite BlackBerry’s rise in value, it’s still far below that of principal U.S. rival Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), the most valuable technology company. Its shares rose 86 censt to $458.70 valuing the Cupertino, Calif., company at $430.6 billion.